


Purpletraz

by Loudest_Voice



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Tales of Vesperia
Genre: Age Difference, Anxiety, Camping, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, F/M, Lost in a Strange World, M/M, Mentions of Other Characters and Pairings, Sharing Body Heat, Warnings at Endnotes, Wormholes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-28
Updated: 2015-11-28
Packaged: 2018-05-03 20:45:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5306189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loudest_Voice/pseuds/Loudest_Voice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark wakes up in a strange, purple world, his head pounding every time he tries to remember how he got there. At least he has a magic swordsman for companionship and survival skills.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Purpletraz

**Author's Note:**

> I planned for this to be a five part story, each part about 1k words each. 5k words and twelve pages later, I was done with part one. I have no self-control. This thing was also supposed to be gen, but Tony Stark can't spend too long around someone who's nice to him without falling in love with them, so here we are. 
> 
> Set before the game (Tales of Vesperia starts) and before Age of Ultron since I haven't figured out how that mess fits into the MCU timeline.

_Come on, I'm not even drinking that much anymore_ , is the first thing that crosses Tony's mind when the sound of rustling leaves drags him out of a deep sleep. _For fuck's sake_. He swears he can smell leaves and dirt and all that other crap nature people love.

"Jarvis?" Tony tries, then lets out a weak cough. He should try opening his eyes, but his head . . . it's not a headache exactly. It's like there's a heavy blanket over his face.

" _Jarvis_ ," he tries again.

He's sure he said it out loud that time, and clearly, so when Jarvis doesn't answer Tony kinda heaves a little.

The annoying-yet-effective shrink Pepper talked him into getting has been blabbing about breathing exercises for months, so Tony takes a deep breath and slowwwly lets it out. He has to do it four more times before he's confident enough to open his eyes.

And yeah . . . yeah.

Those are definitely real trees he's looking at. Lots of them, with branches so thick he can't even see the sky. It's day, maybe. He can see, anyway. There are dried leaves under his hands that crumble when he makes a fist. A rock is digging into his back, right under his scapula.

"Fuck," Tony mutters. He twitches the right side of his face, brings a hand up to feel for his earpiece. No Jarvis.

Tony focuses on himself first. The . . . blanket over his face lifted the instant he opened his eyes. He sucks in another deep breath and yeah, he's definitely breathing okay. Besides the annoying rock - Tony shifts a little, then a lot, until he's lying on smooth ground - nothing hurts. He sits up abruptly, then starts moving his limbs around. Arms and legs move just fine; he can bend his knees and neck with no problems.

So about where he is and how he got there . . .

"Ugh," he hears coming from behind him.

Tony scrambles to his feet then whirls around, falling into a standard boxing stance while praying whoever's with him is not a competent fighter. Without his suit and adequate preparation time, Tony's hardly a champion at self defense.

The person grunts again, opening his eyes and jumping to his - her? - feet _way_ faster than Tony. He doesn't adopt any kind of fighting stance, but his legs are spread a little apart and his knees a little bent, like he's ready to pounce if necessary. Tony’s eyes slide between the slim sword at the kid’s hip and the nasty metal spikes attached to the knuckles of his fingerless gloves.

"Who're you?" the kid asks.

Wide shoulders plus deep baritone equals probably-a-dude, pretty long black hair aside.

"Uh, Tony Stark?"

The guy tilts his head. ". . . That your name?"

Seriously? Not recognizing his face right away, Tony can understand (it's hard out there in the real, face-to-face world without photoshop to shave fifteen years off his face) but not recognizing his _name?_

"Have you been living under a rock for the last twenty years?" Is he some kind of radical flower child who renounced the Internet - and TV, and newspapers, and radio - before Tony started making waves?

"Nah, old man," says Pretty Boy, looking around and stretching. He bounces on his feet a little, rolls his shoulders, and then rubs his eyes."You know where are?"

Tony drops his stance and starts looking around too. Not that he could tell one tree from another if someone pointed a gun at his face, but maybe he’ll spot a tractor or something. "I was hoping you'd help me out there, Pretty Boy," says Tony.

"Afraid I got nothing," says the guy. "I was - " suddenly, he fixes Tony with a wide-eyed stare. "Where was I?"

Tony blinks at him, starts to snap some snarky version how the fuck am I supposed to know -

Except . . . Where was Tony before waking up?

"Shit," he murmurs. The blanket over his mind is back. He can't remember what he was doing . . . last night? Trying to just makes him feel like a hole's about to open under his feet.

"Ow!" Pretty Boy stumbles until his back is to a tree, then crumbles to the ground and draws his knees to his chest, cradling his head in hands.

Tony's going to guess he tried a little too hard to remember. He stops focusing on what exactly dragged him to the forest and the mind-blanket (he needs a better name for that) lifts.

"Kid, you gotta not think about it," Tony says, taking a cautious step towards his companion.

"Okay, alright," says the guy, taking a deep, shuddering breath. He lifts his head upwards but doesn't open his eyes. "My name's Yuri Lowell. I live in the lower quarter. My dog's Repede. I'm nineteen . . ." He keeps mumbling to himself, unfortunately too low for Tony to get more meaningful info. "Okay," breathes Yuri after a few moments. "I know who I am, at least."

Oh. Right.

Tony starts taking stock - though silently - about himself. Name? Check. Birth date? Check. Basic engineering principles? Check. Not so basic engineering principles? Also check. Basics of Jarvis’ code? Check. Latest Iron Man suit schematics? Check. Total net worth? Pepper would know. Memories of Pepper? Check and check.

"Yeah, looks like I know who I am too," says Tony.

"That's nice," says Yuri, rising to his feet. He glances to his left and shrugs. "Good as way as any."

"Wait, wait!" says Tony. "You're can't just pick a random direction and start walking!"

"Do you have a better plan, old man?"

Not yet, but he knows trampling all over a forest when he couldn’t tell poison ivy from grass is probably not the best idea. “My . . . ” Personalized A. I. program might scare the prick off, so . . . “girlfriend’s gonna notice I’m gone pretty soon and people are gonna start looking for me.”

“Well, Flynn visits me once a month, maybe, so I can’t just sit here,” says Yuri. “And you shouldn’t either unless you got water. Or you think your girlfriend’s gonna find you in less than two days?”

Tony finally thinks to check his pocket and yes! Thank God he doesn’t take a dump without at least three separate electronics on his person.

“What’s that?” asks Yuri when Tony pulls out the phone.

“Damn it!” says Tony, frowning down at the bastard ‘No Signal’ symbol on his screen. “Not one measly bar. Shit. Shit. _Shit_.”

“What is it?” insists Yuri.

“It’s a cell phone,” snaps Tony because sometimes being a dick is therapeutic. “Check yours; maybe you have better service.”

“. . . I don’t have one of those.”

Well, no. Tony’s cell phone is a prototype for the Starkphone he plans to launch next year - simple design flip phone, sturdy rather than slim, waterproof, powered by an exclusive Stark Industries OS and exclusive apps designed by Tony’s army of up-and-coming, just-out-of-college programmers. And affordable too; intended for lower class working people who can’t get the latest Iphone bullshit on the market.

“I mean just try your own phone,” says Tony.

“I told you I don’t have one,” repeats Yuri. “I don’t even know what it is.”

“No way,” says Tony. Pretty Boy’s speaking perfect, accentless English. His clothes are a little weird (a dark . . . kimono looking thing plus shapeless black slacks and scuffed cowboy boots with uneven laces reaching just below his knees) but Tony pegged him for a Brooklyn hipster borrowing random ethnic symbols to make himself look deep. “Where are you from?”

“Zaphias.”

Okay. Maybe he’s a hipster from some nowhere town USA.

“I’m from New York,” tries Tony.

No reaction. No ‘wow, I always wanted to visit’ or ‘what’s the pizza like?’. Nothing.

“Where’s that?”

Tony’s gonna hyperventilate if this goes on. The kid not knowing who he is odd, but marginally passable. Not knowing about New York, though? The whole thing has space bullshit written all over it.

“Okay, nice knowing you, Tony,” says Yuri, starting to turn left again.

“Wait, wait!” Tony takes two long strides towards him.

A kid who doesn’t even know what a cell phone is probably won’t be of much use, but the idea of being alone in a strange forest until Pepper and Jarvis can locate him is . . . not pleasant. He grabs Pretty Boy’s arm and is relieved when the guy doesn’t instantly take a swing.

“We should at least stay together for a bit. Let’s give my people at least two hours; take some time to think.”

“No can do, old man,” says Yuri, taking his arm away. “I got no water. Every second is precious.”

Tony watches the kid’s back for about five seconds before he’s cursing his extroverted nature and following him. At least the kid doesn’t make any snide comments, which is more than Tony would’ve done had their positions been reversed.

It’s fifteen minutes of shuffling behind Rapunzel before Tony’s done chasing around ideas about where the fuck they are (a difficult task when trying to remember just how he got there makes him nauseous). He shuts off his Starkphone since he doesn’t have a charger and there’s no point in wasting battery life when Jarvis will try to follow the Arc Reactor’s signal.

Which by the way, Pretty Boy didn’t comment on even though Tony’s wearing a flimsy wife beater that does nothing to hide the Reactor’s glow right in the middle of his chest. Or to shield Tony from the quickly cooling atmosphere, but that doesn't glow so how's the kid supposed to notice?

“No questions about my jewelry, Rapunzel?” asks Tony, always eager to trample over any elephants in the room.

“Huh?” says Yuri, shooting a half glance over his shoulder. “Oh, your glowy chest thing. Figured it was some kind of rich person fashion statement. Not weirder than some of the stupid shit you see on bored nobles up in the Noble’s Quarter. Is it a blastia?”

The word 'blastia' makes Tony’s scientist sense perk up. He speeds up and slides a little closer to Yuri, a question about blastia just at the tip of his tongue, when Yuri suddenly pushes him out of the way. A loud, beastly growl traps an indignant yell somewhere in Tony’s throat. 

He turns toward the sound, then gapes at a . . . giant pig - honest to sweet Christ giant fucking pig with huge tusks coming out of its snout is standing right the fuck over him. Tony smells something rotten in its breath. Without his suit - without Jarvis - Tony might as well be a toddler facing rottweiler, so he’s instinctively starting to curl into a fetal position when something tears through the air.

The giant boar lets out an enraged scream then turns away from Tony.

Tony’s scrambling to his feet, half preparing to run and half scanning behind the boar for Yuri, when the very devil himself is jumping on the enraged pig. It screams a high pitched screech that makes Tony’s stomach clench, then Yuri’s leaping off it as it topples over.

“ _Jesus,_ ” says Tony. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” says Yuri. 

Tony doesn’t take his eyes off the boar. A pool of burgundy blood forms under it.

“Hope that’s edible,” says Yuri.

 _“Edible?_ ” Tony’s trying really hard not to freak out, to focus on something productive, or even just his breath so he doesn’t hyperventilate. Just how close did he come to death? What if he’d been alone? 

Oh God. 

“Don’t be spooked, old man,” Yuri says jovially, patting Tony’s shoulder. It grounds him. “Something that big means there’s definitely a water source close-ish, and smaller things it eats too. At least we won’t go hungry.”

Yuri turns out to be quite the outdoorsman. In a matter of hours, he’s skinned the boar and produced wooden sticks to cook the meat from the front and hind legs. Tony’s stomach is protesting long before Yuri declares the meat safe, when the air around them is colder and there’s no light filtering through the heavy canopy. He hedges closer to the fire in search of heat, hugging himself.

“Let’s hope this isn’t poisonous,” says Yuri a second before grabbing one of the sticks, blowing on a corner of the meat, and taking a bite.

Tony would make some indignant-debutante noise but hey, he’s hungry as hell, so he grabs a stick. “Tastes like a-whole-lot of nothing.”

“Well, it’s not like I know if any of these plants are safe to eat,” says Yuri. “And you’re welcome.”

Tony takes the hint but he’s too busy eating the bland meat, and also too stubborn, to give proper thanks. Yuri will be more than compensated for his trouble when Tony figures out a way to get them back home, or when Pepper and Jarvis rally the Avengers in the most epic search mission ever. Whichever comes first.

The boar settles his hollow belly, but it also makes his throat and mouth as dry as sandpaper. Tony coughs, swallows, and tries not to think about just how long a human body can last without water. There’s some of it in fat and muscle, isn’t there? So Tony technically got some from his dinner, right?

“Here,” says Yuri, passing Tony a round, old-timey looking water flask. “One brief swallow. Don’t just down it, spread it around your mouth.”

“You’re sharing?”

“Yeah, you’re right,” says Yuri, not taking his water back. “Who knows when or if we’ll find a stream or lake? It’d be smarter if I save it all for myself.”

Tony takes the flask, fills his mouth, and passes it back to Yuri. He tastes a hint of metal as he rinses it all over his mouth, then slowly lets it pass down his throat. “Thanks,” he says to Yuri, feeling inadequate. 

The more time passes, the more Tony remembers Afghanistan, and how useless he’d been at first, how he couldn’t manage to save Yinsen after all the man did for him. He shivers.

“So if it gets any colder, you might freeze,” says Yuri.

“Got a solution for that too, MAcGyver?” says Tony, because he can’t not be a sarcastic dick no matter how nice someone is to him.

“Is that a way to talk to someone you’re gonna cuddle?” 

A few minutes later, Tony’s head is tucked under Yuri’s chin and the kid’s kimono thing (which is heavier and warmer than it looks; made of some kind of leather that thankfully doesn't smell like anything) is over their chests. Tony’s not sure what he’s done so that every time he lands himself in a literal and/or figurative shithole, there’s someone with answers and solutions always with him. 

“This thing’s warm,” says Yuri.

The arc reactor. “It’s not gonna hurt you; it’s clean energy.”

“Right,” says Yuri, not sounding particularly interested. He yawns, then his breathing evens out. “You take first watch, wake me if the fire goes out.”

It does get colder in the night, though Tony doubts he’d have gotten any decent sleep anyway. They feed the fire three more times, then Yuri curses and decides Tony’s “blastia” is good enough that keeping a beacon is not worth the risk. 

“Blastia?”

“Yeah, I got one too,” says Yuri with another yawn. 

Tony saves the questions for tomorrow. At least his core is toasty enough; Yuri’s doesn’t toss or turn and the heat from the arc reactor is trapped between their torsos. It’s silent too, eerily so. Shouldn’t there be crickets and shit in a forest? Though what does Tony know about it? 

More than once, he has to stop himself from asking Jarvis something. 

The lighting changes very little, and so gradually that Tony only notices that it must be day when Yuri fidgets for a few moments before waking up. Everything still has that dead, purplish-brown tint. What’s left of the boar is where they left it. Mercifully, there aren’t flies buzzing about its corpse. Yuri, much to Tony’s horror, decides that they can get another meal out of it.

“Relax,” says Yuri. “It was too cold for it to start rotting even if enough time had passed, which it didn’t.” 

“No way, what if we end up with a nasty infection?”

“Suit yourself,” shrugs Yuri, “but I’m eating. Don’t whine to me later if you can’t keep up.”

Of course, Tony caves once the meat is cooked. He tells himself it doesn’t taste any less bland than yesterday. They repeat the sharing ritual with Yuri’s flask and Tony is once again embarrassed.

“So, what’s a blastia?”

Yuri gestures at the jewel embedded on his right gauntlet, then nods at Tony’s chest. 

“This?” Tony points at the reactor. “Is not a ‘blastia’. It’s Stark Clean Energy Tech, trademarked.”

“Whatever,” says Yuri. 

“It won’t have to be recharged in two-point-five _million_ years on my last check,” brags Tony. 

Yuri is unfazed.

“But,” continues Tony, “it’s not something I’ll be able to replicate here, so I repeat, what’s a blastia?”

“It’s a thing that channels mana to do stuff,” says Yuri, which is decidedly unhelpful. “It lets human do artes and magic.”

“Magic?” By Tony’s calculations, magic equals Loki, and Loki equals shitshow. 

“I can’t any real magic besides artes,” says Yuri, “but the blastia makes me stronger and faster, which is all I need.”

“Sure,” says Tony. “But how does it work?”

“How do you mean?”

“Like _how does it work?_ ” How can Tony make that question more self-explanatory.

“I have no idea,” says Yuri. “What am I? Some mage?”

“For fuck’s sake.” Okay, the guy’s walking around with gauntlets and a medieval sword that he used to slaughter a giant pig. Clearly, he must come from some sci-fi cyberpunk universe that Tony might consider cool if he weren’t trapped God knows where, away from Pepper and everything he’s ever known. “Can I see it?”

Aside from being perfectly spherical, the ‘blastia’ doesn’t look like anything special. It's a purple, almost-black crystal that gleams a little when Tony brings it closer to the fire, but there’s no warmth coming from it, not even a sense that some special power is living inside. If it was a kid's toy, it'd be a choking hazard.

“How do you use it?” asks Tony.

“Well,” starts Yuri. Tony can practically hear him think. “I focus on my strength, then I fight.”

“But how does it _feel?_ ” Tony breathes. He tries to imagine what it would be like if some random kid from his world got stuck in another planet/dimension/whatever with an engineer, and that engineer asked him how a smartphone works. 

“I don’t know,” admits Yuri. “I just feel stronger, and like everything’s clearer.”

Tony sighs and hands him the stupid blastia thing back. He misses Jarvis like he’d miss a limb, worse than he did in Afghanistan even. At least there, he had been on Earth. 

“We need to push on, old man,” says Yuri. “We’re fucked if we don’t find where the boar drank.”

Tony figures they’ll just put out the fire and keep on, but Yuri kneels beside the boar carcass and pulls out his knife.

“What now?” demands Tony when Yuri brings the dagger to the thing’s snout. 

“These tusks might make good weapons,” says Yuri. “Or we might be able to sell them once we find a village or city.”

Tony can’t muster the energy to be scandalized. He just looks away and waits for Yuri to be done.

Their trip feels interminable by hour . . . Tony has no idea. He hasn’t dared to turn on his phone in the foolish hope that they’re actually in some rainforest at home, mere miles away from a city with signal. He wishes he’d ever been a nature kid so he’d know if there are forest on Earth where the canopy is so thick and dark that whatever rays sneak past are tinted with a purple hue, where the tree trunks seem to have a fine layer of fuzzy hair over them and the forest floor is both rocky and brimming with spongy moss. 

“Yuri,” Tony says when the silence if gnawing at his nerves. “Yuri! Shouldn’t we take a break?”

Yuri shushes him. His strides have gotten shorter and more measured, which Tony missed in his self-absorption. “Wait here,” he says.

God only knows how many minutes later, Tony’s close to a shitty panic attack he can’t even blame on being startled. He’s just sure that Yuri realized that Tony’s useless without electricity, Jarvis, and tools, not worth the effort of dragging around like the ugliest damsel in distress in the world. It’s irrational, probably, but Tony’s stupid treatment hasn’t exactly made him more functional, no matter what Pepper says. If anything, it's made him more sensitive.

So he’s aware that he’s terrified of being alone now. Excellent. That just means that a few minutes alone in the ghastly forest, his mind reeling every time he tries to remember how he got there, the strange blanket of quietness on him like a web that weighs tons, reduces him to blubbery mess of toddler-like anxiety. 

He makes a hiccupping sound of jumpy relief when Yuri returns with an honest-to-God dead deer over his shoulders. He deposits it at Tony’s feet with a toothy grin, like he’s the world’s tallest cat dealing with the clumsiest human. It takes Tony a moment to notice the big magenta leaves he’s brandishing.

“It was eating this,” explains Yuri, waving the things in Tony’s face. “I figure we’d try them too.”

“Why?” Tony scrunches his nose. The things have streaks of deeper purple in them that look almost like blood. If he squints, he could pretend they’re novelty lettuce leaves.

“‘Cause leaves have water in them sometimes,” says Yuri. “Besides, you ever tried to shit when all you’re eating is meat and a little bit of water? Not a pleasant experience.”

It can’t be any worse than a bathroom trip after a weekend of binge drinking, but Tony doesn’t feel like joking about that in case Yuri says something about not knowing what alcohol is. Every time the guy acts like an extraterrestrial, Tony’s reminded of just how far away from home he is.

“Kind of early for lunch,” says Yuri as he starts another fire, “but who knows when we’ll find something else to eat.”

Tony makes an effort to help gathering firewood at least, then they settle down and wrap deer meat with those purple leaves. It’s still not dinner at the Ritz, but Tony admits that he’s less thirsty than he was after the boar dinner. To his immense disgust, his nose gets runny and his throat scratchy. Great. He's catching a freaking cold on top of it all.

“My people are gonna be looking for me,” Tony tells Yuri, though he realizes that it’s mostly to reassure himself. “I got the best A.I. in the world--the universe--and my girlfriend and CEO could organize kindergarteners into solving the Middle Eastern conflict.”

“I didn’t understand any of that,” says Yuri. 

“I figured,” admits Tony. “What about you? You got any people looking?”

“It’s just me and Flynn,” shrugs Yuri. “Mostly me since Flynn stayed with the Imperial Knights. Next time he tries to visit me, he’ll assume I just took a trip to another city, then he’ll probably think I’ve been killed and curse me out for not being more careful. I hope Repede finds him even if it’ll make him worry.”

The word ‘Imperial’ doesn’t sit well with Tony’s American or Star Wars fan sensibilities, but there’s probably never been a better time to listen to that adage about religion and politics.

“This Flynn your brother?”

“Close enough,” says Yuri. “Orphans. We grew up together in the lower quarter.”

Tony doesn’t have much to say to that. He doesn’t have much opportunity to mingle with the little (read: poor) people, so to speak. It took him a long while and like ten sessions of whining about Cap during therapy to stop and wonder what he must seem like to everyone who’s ever struggled through a nine-to-five, or worse. They have every reason to hate him, Tony is willing to admit.

“I’m . . . wealthy,” Tony demurs, if only because Yuri should be reassured that people are looking for him.

“I noticed,” snorts Yuri.

“Hey! It’s not like I have a dollar sign, or gold coin, or whatever currency you use, tattooed to my forehead.”

“You might as well,” says Yuri. “You look old enough to be my father, but you’re not even carrying a knife. You turned your nose up at perfectly good food, you couldn’t start a fire, and you blab about magic. You’re in shape, for the most part, so I guess you must practice combat for fun.”

Tony chooses to argue with the least true part of that aside from the magic thing because he’s in no mood to try and explain engineering to a magic knight. “I’m not old enough to be your father!” Except he is, but Tony knows that he’s aging well.

“Sure,” says Yuri, smirking.

Tony tries to argue and is interrupted by a coughing fit. He spits out snot mingled with reddish tint from the purple lettuce.

"You give me that cold and I'll kill you," says Yuri.

The travel the entire day, Tony babbling until Yuri snaps he’s not going to share his water just because Tony can’t keep his tongue from flapping. That night, they huddle close together again. If Yuri notices that Tony’s hugging him a little tighter, he keeps it to himself. By the second day of travelling, when Yuri’s flask is getting worryingly light and Tony’s worrying that there might be sweat fungi growing on his armpits and even more private areas, they finally hear running water.

Yuri lets out a nervous chuckle, then quickens his pace. They find the water a few meters ahead and Yuri runs forward. Tony’s excited too, though not so much that he forgets to look around on the way to the stream.

It’s on the clearest part of the forest they’ve found. A burgundy sky with a few purplish clouds is visible above a small waterfall, confirming Tony’s anxiety. There’s no where on Earth where the clouds are that purple.

It doesn’t stop Yuri from beaming brighter than Tony’s ever seen. “I was getting worried there,” he says in between gulps of water.

“What if it’s not safe?” Tony protests weakly.

“The animals around here drink it,” Yuri says with a shrug. “At worst, we get the runs.”

“What color is the sky in your world?” asks Tony.

“Blue, mostly,” says Yuri. “Clouds are white or gray.” 

Neither of them says much about that, but Tony figures Yuri doesn’t like the red sky anymore than he does.

They bathe on that stream despite Tony’s horror about it being where they’re planning to drink from for the foreseeable future. Yuri laughs at him and instead of being offended, Tony notes that now that he’s seeing the kid properly under a creepily reddish sun, he’s more attractive than Tony gave him credit for. 

“We just need to follow the stream now,” Yuri says after, running his fingers through his long dark hair. “Sooner or later, we’ll run into people.”

Sounds reasonable. 

“Why don’t you cut it?” asks Tony when Yuri’s fingers get tangled on a particularly nasty knot.

“At first, just because haircuts are expensive,” says Yuri. “Then I heard balding noble ladies pay real money for human hair so they can make realistic wigs.” He frowns and tries to gentle his fingers through the knot. “Or pay someone to make the wig. And I thought hey, you never know when a fat braid of hair might be your next meal.”

That kind of poverty is so far removed from anything Tony has ever known that it might as well be a unicorn. “Here, let me help.” He slides closer to Yuri and offers his hands, “I’m really good with my hands.”

He doesn’t realize how worried Yuri had been until the next day, when Yuri doesn’t tell him to shut up even once. He even asks Tony follow-up question.

“What’s a computer?” he asks when Tony tries to explain what Jarvis is.

Though Yuri is perfectly willing to accept a simple explanation, Tony’s determined to make him as knowledgeable as the average nineteen year old from Earth. More than that, which should be too hard.

They keep walking down stream, never going too far away from the water except so Yuri can hunt. Tony makes it a point to be as useful as possible so he gathers all their firewood and demands that Yuri teach him to skin an animal. If nothing else, the blood warms his hands. On the third morning, things get awkward, at least for Tony. They’re still sleeping all cuddled up even though Tony's cold is not going away, sharing the heat from the reactor, and one of them finally wakes up with an obvious erection. 

Specifically, Yuri wakes up with a woodie since Tony hasn’t gotten used to his back freezing every night and the cold has him in the grips of a never-ending nasal headache. It presses against Tony’s hip. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Tony says as Yuri disentangles from him.

“About what?” 

Tony would think it’s misdirection, except Yuri sounds too genuinely curious. “You know,” he says, gesturing vaguely at the tent Yuri pitched.

“Oh, that,” says Yuri with a dismissive wave of his hand. “It happens to guys in the morning sometimes. Unless . . .” he looks at Tony with sad eyes. “You’re too old now?”

“Oh fuck, no!” Tony says, exaggerating how indignant he is at the comment. 

Yuri laughs that happy, carefree laugh then declares he’s gonna go “take care of it”. Mostly, Tony’s relieved that Yuri isn’t going to declare a No Homo Zone embargo on sharing body heat at night. 

By day five, the trees are getting sparser and Yuri complains that it’s getting harder to find things to hunt. They spend the entire day then eating those purple leaves, which fill Tony’s stomach well enough but do little to satiate him.

“It’s good,” says Yuri. “Bigger animals know to stay away from towns.” 

Tony tries to be that positive. He pictures running into friendly people with technology to rival Asgardians and offers Yuri the brightest smile he can muster. Later, he actually throws his arm around Yuri’s shoulders in a celebratory hug when, hours later, they escape the accursed forest and find a road.

A road!

It’s not a highway or anything like that and there aren’t any labels or lines painted on the gravel, but Tony doesn’t care. Where there are roads, there are cars. Where there are cars, there are mechanics. And where there are mechanics, there are engineers. 

“We’re getting outta here, Yuri!”

“I don’t wanna go too far from the stream, though,” says Yuri, frowning at the paved gravel. It’s going in a perpendicular direction from the water.

Tony’s opening his mouth, dozens of persuasive arguments on hand, when they hear the rhythmic sound of a motor. A green truck is nearing them seconds later, men armed with machine guns loaded on the back. Yuri tenses, but at least he has the good sense not to try anything stupid when the truck halts in front of them and one of the goons aims an assault rifle at them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Idk if anyone ever is gonna want to read this. If you get this far, you might like my blog [here](http://www.dynamicallyopposed.com/).


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